


Trying to Find a Balance

by DietS0daS0ciety



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Episode: s11e03 Rosa, also major character death?, ryan is just gay and i need everyone to know it, sorry in advance, sorry ryans nan, tagged m/m but theres no ships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 14:02:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16368977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DietS0daS0ciety/pseuds/DietS0daS0ciety
Summary: Ryan is gay and here's some angst to prove it(in which i am a disaster with some Feelings about the new companions)





	Trying to Find a Balance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [olliealexander](https://archiveofourown.org/users/olliealexander/gifts).



Ryan had been planning to come out to his Nan the week before she died. But he hadn’t, obviously, because plans change and life is complicated when you’re not quite sure who you’re going to be after you lay your truths out to the world. For years after he would try to blame the fact that he couldn’t find the right time, but there was always a right time. He could even distinctly remember three separate times that would’ve been perfect. But Ryan buried that under the guilt that he was scared; because coming out was scary.  
He’d known for years that he liked guys; fleeting moments here and there, more overpowering crushes that he could never talk to anyone about (no matter how much he wanted to). He’d known for less time that he didn’t like girls, and that was more difficult to come to terms with. It was less about his sexuality than the fact that he knew that he wouldn’t give his Nan any great-grandkids. Ryan didn’t care, he knew he could adopt, and for the most part, he knew his Nan wouldn’t care either. 

And then he met the Doctor and everything was crazy and wonderful and for the first time in the whole week, he wasn’t worried about hiding himself from his Nan and feeling guilty that he’d planned it for so long and panicked every time. Yaz was there and she was lovely, as she should be. Every time Ryan met someone like Yaz he questioned whether he should even go through with coming out in the first place. Yaz is nice; Yaz is pretty; Yaz is safe.  
If his Nan knew he ever thought like this she’d be livid, and sometimes Ryan would laugh thinking about it. It made a nice change to the other times he would think on her and cry.

Then there was the alien. That foul creature who one minute felt like the butt of a joke and the next was ripping his heart out one, pulling one string loose at a time. It didn’t feel like that when he took his Nan. It felt like he had already done it, and Ryan would kneel there at her side with an aching Nothing in his chest. His ribs felt like they were trying to collapse in on themselves but the black crate in his chest was expanding too much too soon.  
The funeral wasn’t easy. Ryan had to force himself to hold a grudge against Graham like he had been for five years prior. He would never call him Granddad, but Ryan could feel the pain radiating from the front of the church and he did love Graham.

When it came to it, the solution was obvious. Ryan was desperate to be himself; he felt he owed it to Grace to come out to someone, especially if that someone was Graham.  
After the stress and pain of seeing Rosa Parks arrested, they needed some time. The Doctor had taken them back to the TARDIS and no one spoke. The feeling of emptiness and disbelief rippled through the control room and it was as if they all refused to make eye contact with each other.  
“So how big is this thing then,” Ryan asked, choking slightly at the start. None of them had spoken since they arrived at the police box, and each of them were worried of their own accord that no one would.  
The Doctor clapped her hands together and smiled but there was an exhaustion in her eyes that was practically unmissable. “Miles and miles,” she said, “You can go explore if you want, while I try and fix this to get us to Sheffield.”

So he did. He found somewhere to go in the box and went. For a moment Ryan thought he was too exhausted to cry, but he passed a room when he was walking down the winding corridors, quiet to his right and filled with warm lighting and sofas and bean bags. It looked like a children’s napping room; it looked like heaven. He sat down and he cried. This experience was absurd and wonderful and completely insane. And it was exhausting. Ryan had never felt so overwhelmed in his life, so he cried.

He hardly noticed when he was no longer alone, but the bean bags shifted and Graham sank silently down beside him.  
He didn’t even try to touch Ryan, he just said, “I know.”

And Ryan was angry, how could he know? What could he possibly understand about this? His Nan, maybe, but unfiltered and overpowering racism in the 50s? Hated for who he was by others, and hating himself for not being able to share the rest. Not that he ever wanted to be hated for who he was but surely it would be easier to fight with other people looking out for him?  
Ryan was so lost inside his own head he didn’t realise Graham was talking. It was some spiel, softly spoken and comforting, about Rosa and Grace and even the aliens they’d faced before.

“I’m gay.”

Graham didn’t stop abruptly like Ryan expected, but his speech dwindled and then ceased, all slowly. Ryan didn’t look up, but could feel Graham’s eyes on him.

“I’m gay,” Ryan repeated, and this time, Graham reached out to put a hand on his back. Ryan didn’t even know what to do, so he just sank into the hug, drained of all of his energy. The tears were soft this time, not shaking through his body like before, or like when his Nan had died, they fell freely and Ryan just breathed through them.  
“I tried to tell her,” he started, but Graham was quiet, and Ryan knew what that meant.

They talked for a while after that, the two of them, about Grace (properly this time), about Ryan’s life before Graham came into it, and Ryan found it easier not to hold back. He didn’t need a grudge against Graham, and now the two of them shared something, something small that allowed them to connect a little at least.  
Neither of them knew if they would reach Sheffield on their next trip, or even in the next five, but Ryan was himself around someone, and that made it a little easier.


End file.
